On World AIDS Day, leaders at Positive Impact learned they were awarded a cooperative agreement with the federal Centers for Disease Control & Prevention to keep alive a crucial HIV testing site. The Dec. 1 announcement comes on the heels of Positive Impact also expanding its services to offer a substance abuse support program.
Positive Impact, which was founded to provide mental health services for people affected by HIV, expanded to take on both programs when the organizations that previously offered them shut down.
“The community needed these programs, the clients needed these programs, so we couldn’t just let them go,” said Paul Plate, Positive Impact executive director.
The new programs make Positive Impact the only stand-alone agency in the United States to offer HIV prevention, testing, mental health services and substance abuse support groups under the same roof, said Danny Sprouse, director of prevention for the agency.
The Dec. 1 announcement from the CDC means the Counseling, Testing & Referral Center will remain open at least until June 2010, when the contract ends. The testing center’s fate had been in limbo since its previous operator, AIDS Survival Project, announced the organization would close at the end of the year.
Positive Impact and AIDS Survival Project shared a building at 139 Ralph McGill Blvd., so the new agreement will allow the testing center to continue operating without disruption.
The decision is a relief to Kevin English, who led the testing center under AIDS Survival Project and will continue in that role with Positive Impact.
The center tests an average of 200 people per month, including many who return regularly for testing, English said. Approximately 3 to 5 percent test positive for HIV, a rate much higher than general testing centers like public health departments, he said. The center offers Oraquick testing that does not require a needle stick; results are available in 20 minutes.
“If we had to close, it would have been difficult for our clients to find other locations to get tested,” said English, noting the center’s central location and convenient access to MARTA. “It would have been a great loss.”
Positive Impact thought about applying to the CDC to run the testing center when it was first created years ago, Sprouse said.
“We seriously considered it then, but our HIV prevention program was just budding at that time,” he said. “Now we have a very strong prevention program, so testing is a natural progression.”
Positive Impact’s free HIV prevention programs are open to anyone regardless of HIV status or income level; specific programs include groups targeted to black gay men and white and Latino gay men, among others. The testing center is also free of charge.
To access Positive Impact’s mental health services, clients must be HIV-positive or else “affected” by HIV, meaning someone close to them — like a partner or spouse — has HIV. Those services are free to people whose income is less than three times the federal poverty level, but Plate stresses that no person wanting help will be turned away.
SUBSTANCE ABUSE HELP
In November, Positive Impact expanded its services to include substance abuse support groups and counseling for people affected by HIV. The new program fills the void left when another HIV non-profit, Our Common Welfare, closed earlier this year.
The substance abuse program includes a two-hour, professionally-led support group that meets daily, according to Gwen Davies, Positive Impact clinical director. Clients also receive individualized counseling and can access all of Positive Impact’s other services.
About one-third of Positive Impact’s current mental health clients are also substance abusers, so the agency saw a clear need to offer a program dealing directly with that issue, Davies said.
Positive Impact’s current annual budget is $1.5 million, with $1.3 million coming from grants, Plate said. The agency is “really stable for the moment,” but launching the new services in a difficult financial environment means the agency needs more community support than ever before, he said.
Immediate needs range from financial donations to two large area rugs for the substance abuse program, Plate said.
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